We were quickly reminded in a forum yesterday that Yoga is not a Martial Art. This is very true as the term “Martial Art” is defined as an art that includes an element of combat, and Yoga is about as far from a “combat art” as you can get.

So why do we have Yoga on our website? Well, it’s our guess that some people are coming to this site looking to get into Martial Arts for fitness and fun. While those living in larger cities will have a plethora of schools and styles to choose from, those living in smaller communities may not have that luxury and Yoga may be one of the only options.

Regardless, our goal is to make ExperienceMartialArts appeal to as wide of an audience as possible. We want you to get involved, whatever your reasons may be.

For those of you interested in purely fitness, just about every Martial Art will help you get into shape. If you’re curious about Yoga, I encourage you to give it a shot…my wife has been doing it for years and loves it! It doesn’t help her defend herself, but I think that’s why she’s also interested in Krav Maga, the Israeli self-defense system. (Krav Maga is also not a “Martial Art” since it doesn’t have a sport component, it’s purely for self defense and can be quite a workout while training.)

Will Yoga ever help you in a fight with 2 Kung-Fu students? Probably not. But it makes this video even funnier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrYlNNy929Y

Let’s be honest…just about every Martial Arts website out there is…well…ugly.  Bad colors, bad graphics, lots of ads, pop-ups.  I have a hard time just looking at a lot of these sites let alone actually navigating them.  But when I do come across the occasional well-designed and laid out site it’s a sigh of relief.  And if it has good information…even better!

I know a lot of these people live more for the martial art they practice than they do the internet, so I decided to write up a couple of articles to help out the martial arts schools out there.  They’re completely opinion based, but as someone with a background in the internet and fairly new to martial arts, I hope I’m providing some insight as to what  martial art newbies will be experiencing.

Making a Great Martial Arts School Website
http://www.experiencemartialarts.com/articles/website.html

Promoting Your Website
http://www.experiencemartialarts.com/articles/promote.html

I welcome any comments/suggestions or even questions that anyone has about these articles and am more than happy to consult with you on how you can improve your existing website.
Remember…your website may be the first impression a potential new student has with your school.  This is like a first date.  If you show up in ragged clothes that don’t match with a hole in the butt of your pants, you’re definately not getting a 2nd date.  Clean up your act and earn those extra students.

As we grow Experience Martial Arts, we’ll be doing a lot of internet-based marketing to help grow the readership and popularity of the website. We all know that traffic=success in the internet world, so this is vital not only to us…but to anyone else starting up their own website.

This will be a log of what we are doing, what’s working, what’s not working and great websites to help you out.

We had an initial consultation with Untouchable Marketing and gained a lot of valuable knowledge on how to get started. I’ll keep you updated of our progress as we go!

As always, if any of this is helpful we ask that you please link to us. Thanks!

Our website is in part an experiment of mixing Martial Arts Schools with a Google map to help martial art students find a great school in their area. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes and I honestly have no idea what I’m doing! But that’s the fun of it…

This is my “diary” (I guess) of how I did it. What websites I used as tutorials, friends that helped me along the way, and what I’ve learned as I progress. My hope is that you’ll be able to learn from my experience and create your own Google Maps quicker and easier.

I only ask that you please respect the originality of our idea of Martial Arts Schools with Google Maps and not copy this exact idea. Also, if any of this information was helpful…a link back to our website would be greatly appreciated!